Seven star hotels to host Games visitors
By Yu Yilei (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-03-19 10:10

Beijing Olympic organizers say environmental concerns were a major factor when choosing the first group of hotels that will provide accommodations during the 2008 Summer Games.

Seven five-star hotels - Beijing Hotel, China World Hotel, Grand Hotel Beijing, Hong Kong Macao Centre Swissotel, Beijing International Hotel, Kunlun Hotel and Crowne Plaza Park View Wuzhou Beijing, are included in the prestigious list.

Their representatives signed the Olympic lodging deals with the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Olympic Games (BOCOG) on March 18 in the Beijing Hotel.

"We are focusing on those environmentally-friendly hotels besides evaluating the equipment and service level," said Zhang Mao, Beijing's vice-mayor and BOCOG vice-president.

"We have rigid requirements for the signed hotels, asking them to follow the environmental protection guideline provided by BOCOG."

The guideline is a supplement of the Olympic Lodging Agreement and sets a higher standard for signed hotels on overall management, energy saving, pollution prevention and catering.

It requires the signed hotels to do their best on things like water saving, controlling air and noise pollution, room air quality and forbids catering wild animals.

"With all of the efforts, we are trying to put the negative impact of hosting Olympic Games into minimum while providing the best ever Olympics," said Yu Xiaoxuan, head of the environment division of BOCOG.

Reservations, cancellations, pricing, settlement, security and possible ambush market are other factors for signed hotels to focus.

These seven hotels are expected to provide 3,500 rooms, about one sixth of the total 22,000 required by the International Olympic Committee. They will accommodate accredited people from the Olympic Family, the sponsors and the media people.

The BOCOG is preparing to provide 23,000 rooms, 1,000 more than the required figure to prevent a possible room shortage.

To meet the goal, BOCOG will select some 70 more hotels this year. Beijing also will provide more youth hotels, inns and family hotels to meet demands of different visitors.

Close